Saturday, July 13, 2013

Sat Jul 13th Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Shane Songsataporn, Patrick Stewart (1940). Born on the same day, across the years. In 1793, Charlotte Corday assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, a leader in both the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, in his bathtub. 1863, Three days of rioting began in New York City by opponents of new laws passed by the United States Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. 1962, In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismissed seven members of his Cabinet. 1977, Ethiopia and Somalia went to war over the disputed Ogaden region in eastern Ethiopia. 2003, French DGSE personnel aborted an operation to rescue Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, causing a political scandal when details were leaked to the press six days later. You seize your chances and will riot to do what is right. Maybe rioting doesn't work, or you'd keep you cabinet positions. You do the right thing at the right time. Make it so. Engage.
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Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines was singing a new tune late Friday, this time in the form of an apology to President Bush for saying she was ashamed that he was from Texas.

“As a concerned American citizen, I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful. I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect,” Maines said in her latest statement.

Tim Blair – Saturday,July 13,2013 (3:57pm)

Dar, generally a reliable umpire, is now copping it from everyone – with some justification, in this particular case. So is English batsman Stuart Broad, although by declining to walk Broad was merely following general Australian cricket protocols. The Australian line, as described by former captain Ian Chappell, is that umpires rather than players are responsible for decisions. If you’re given out, you go. If not, you stay.

The bigger issue is the flawed decision review system, which should be taken out of the hands of players and applied as needed by technology-assisted officials. Following Broad’s non-dismissal, for example, a simple alert from the third umpire would have taken care of matters. Then again, even video evidence isn’t always faultless.

Tim Blair – Friday,July 12,2013 (5:25pm)

A group of activists from Greenpeace on Thursday scaled the Shard, the tapered 310m glass tower next to London Bridge station, as a protest against oil and gas drilling in the Arctic.

To them, it makes sense. Just as singer Grace Knight once thought it made sense to take her clothes off – in private – with a bunch of other women to protest against the war in Iraq:

She says she’s never done anything like this before, and the momentum her email has generated “thrills me but scares me as well”. She’s nervous about stripping off, as are most women who’ve agreed to come, and she asked me not to reveal the location of the protest for fear of unwanted onlookers.

That’s tough to beat, but let’s try. Readers are invited to nominate a subject of protest: Arctic mining, Tony Abbott, whatever you like. Readers are also invited to separately nominate protest actions: climbing buildings and the like.

Then we’ll match ‘em all up in a frenzy of logic-free leftoid activity-ism.

Another day, another boat. This one boat is costing us a whopping $13,790,000, conservatively. 197 on board.

I know some Labor Ministers know perfectly well the boats can and should be turned back:

A
DETAILED plan to deal with people-smuggling has been developed by the
opposition based on advice from senior members of the armed forces.
“The Coalition has delved into this very deeply with some very
experienced people in our defence forces,” opposition immigration
spokesman Scott Morrison told The Australian.
Former navy chief Chris Ritchie, retired major general Jim Molan and a
recent defence attache in Jakarta, Gary Hogan, have all made the case
that while turning back boats would be difficult and had risks, it had
been done before and could be done again. They have argued it would send
a strong message to the region.
Mr Morrison would neither reveal if the Coalition’s military advisers
were serving or past members of the Australian Defence Force nor release
details of the plan.

UPDATE
Another boat has sunk, north of Christmas Island. Reader J reports some
100 people are believed to be involved and there are bodies in the
water. The Home Affairs Minister, Jason Clare, will give a press
conference soon.
UPDATE
Clare says 88 rescued, one baby dead, eight missing. Man in Melbourne
alerted them to vessel sinking, and gave them coordinates - 108 nautical
miles north of Christmas Island.

The Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head by the Taliban last year has addressed the United Nations on her 16th birthday, vowing not to silenced by terrorists.
Nine months after a gunman shot her on a bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley
for demanding education for girls, Malala Yousafzai received multiple
standing ovations at the United Nations Youth Assembly in New York…
“Let us pick up our books and pens, they are our most powerful weapons,” she said.
“One child, one teacher ... can change the world.”

The best part:

On the 9th October 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead and they shot friends too.
They thought that the bullet would silence us - but they failed.
Out of that silence came thousands of voices.
The terrorists thought they would change my aim and stop my ambitions.
But nothing changed except this weakness, fear and helplessness died, and strength, power and courage was born.

On The Bolt Report on Network 10 at 10 and 4pm.
Former Howard minister Peter Reith, former Victorian Labor vice president Kimberley Kitching (no longer now a candidate for Lalor) and the Liberals’ polling guru, Mark Textor.
On the Liberals’ new attack, Kevin Rudd’s shaving cut and - oh, yes, - some policy. Or the absence of it.
The twitter feed.The place the videos appear.

We don’t know what Rudd will do to cut power prices.
We don’t know what Rudd will do to cut the carbon tax.
We don’t know what Rudd will do to cut the deficit.
We don’t know what Rudd will do to stop the boats.
We don’t know what Rudd will do to fund the disability scheme.
We don’t know what Rudd will do to lift productivity.
We don’t know what Rudd will do to help business.
We don’t know what Rudd will do to create jobs.
But today we did learn one thing on the Prime Minister’s plate has been dealt with:

Modern politics. Rudd has got the moron vote all sewn up. But glad to see he’s reading us and is nettled enough to respond.

I first realised how reluctant publishers and booksellers were to even believe conservatives could read when I put together Still Not Sorry, a collection of my columns.
Major stores such as Borders - now closed - would not even stock it, yet
its first and only print run of 15,000 still sold out, making it what
counts in Australia as a best-seller.
Professor Ian Plimer is a more astonishing example. Although already a successful author, he struggled to find a publisher willing to take on his Heaven + Earth,
which attacked the global warming faith with cool reason. His
manuscript was turned down by Random House, Allen and Unwin and East
Street, which were otherwise happy to publish global warming tracts
which sold in tiny numbers. Heaven + Earth was even rejected by ABC Books, which had previously sold 16,000 copies of Plimer’s prize-winning A Short History of Planet Earth.
Yet Heaven + Earth became an international bestseller, and sold more than 30,000 copies in Australia alone.
Now it’s the turn of Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies About Climate Change - a sceptical analysis that is primarily the work of internationally respected geologist Bob Carter and Age cartoonist John Spooner, aided by such experts as former National Climate Centre chief Bill Kininmonth.
They, too, could not find a publisher, and had to publish it themselves. Moreover, The Age has not granted this heretical book a review, even though one of the co-authors is a distinguished member of its staff.
Is that because the book won’t sell?
No, because once again the evidence shows that, yes, conservatives do
read and are hungry for the debate that publishers seem only too quick
to deny. Amazon says Carter and Spooner’s book is already selling handsomely:

Had the government not intervened, with a temporary, targeted and
timely national stimulus strategy as we did, what would’ve happened? The
economy would’ve gone into recession as those around the world did.

Academic authors have delivered damning
verdicts on the efficacy of Rudd’s fiscal stimulus, which the government
is yet to refute.
Tony Makin, an Australian economics professor at Griffith University,
has forensically examined Australia’s national accounts in the critical
months during 2008 and 2009, when the global economic free-fall risked
dragging Australia down, demonstrating clearly that government spending
did little to boost economic activity. The spending on pink batts and
school halls came much later.
What kept the economy afloat was the Australian dollar’s collapse - down
more than 20c against the US dollar in late 2008 - which prompted an
export goldmine at the same time that China’s demand for resources was
rapidly growing.
“The federal government’s direct contribution to the change in
consumption and investment was minimal, with its major impact arriving
several quarters after it was deemed necessary,” Makin writes.
As for the notorious $8 billion worth of cheques that hit Australians’
bank accounts in April or May 2009, a more recent paper by four
academics, including a Treasury official, shows Australians on average
spent only an extra $1 of their windfall, saving much of the rest.
“The effect of the fiscal transfer on the change in household
consumption expenditures is insignificant and quantitatively small - the
average household spent less than 0.2 per cent of the income windfall,”
the authors write.
These outcomes are not unique. In a 2011 study, Makin and Paresh
Narayan, a finance professor at Deakin University, highlight the
remarkable off-setting relationship between public and private savings
in Australia from 1980 to 2008, suggesting the recent surge in household
saving is at least in part a nervous reaction to the Rudd government’s
fiscal excess.

CHILDREN as young as 10 could be criminally charged as part of a radical proposal to overhaul Australia’s approach to bullying.
A symposium organised by the National Centre Against Bullying (NCAB) and
Australian Federal Police will next week consider how laws should be
strengthened to fight bullying and cyberbullying…
NCAB chairman Alastair Nicholson, the former chief justice of the Family
Court, said ... it was hoped it would lead to recommendations to
federal and state governments for law reform. Asked what the laws could
look like, Justice Nicholson said the offence would mean children as
young as 10 could be charged but that it would not lead to young people
being jailed.

What would this lead to? Police called to playgrounds and primary
schools everywhere to arrest young boys? Irate mothers sicking police
onto the children of mums they don’t like? Court hearings to determine
whether playground chants were just teasing or bullying?
What kind of state would have such laws? What kind of culture of complaint would we build?
An easier fix? Go exactly the other way. Don’t pass new laws but repeal
old ones, and let principals and teachers enforce discipline without
fear of being sued for discrimination or assault, or of being appealed
against in any forum.

We’ll show you some of the attack ad on The Bolt Report tomorrow, and get Liberal pollster Mark Textor to explain the strategy:

TONY Abbott and the Liberal Party are fighting back against Kevin Rudd’s
sizzling return as leader and the revival of Labor’s electoral chances
with a national television campaign promoting existing Coalition policies and targeting the Prime Minister’s first-term record.
After being thrown on the defensive and appearing flat-footed in the
face of Mr Rudd’s resurrection and Labor’s return to 50-50 on second
preferences in the latest Newspoll, the Opposition Leader has ticked off
a television advertising campaign to start tomorrow and run through
next week.
Although the campaign has been restructured in part to take account of
Mr Rudd’s replacement of Julia Gillard two weeks ago, it is not in the
style of US political “attack ads” and goes through Mr Rudd’s policy
record between 2007 and 2010 and signals no policy changes from the
Coalition.

The Liberals will take on All Talk Rudd by connecting this New Kevin to
the Old Kevin. The ad campaign is going to be the most expensive
pre-election one the Liberals have ever run.
The Liberals were actually heartened by Kevin Rudd’s appearance at the
National Press Club this week - even if there’s some doubt over the
strategy to deny him a debate.
After three years away from the job, and two weeks back in it, Rudd had
nothing of substance to say about what he would actually do about the
economy. Talking about having talks is just all talk.
UPDATE
The attack ad does not yell or get too tricky. It has a voice calmly reading out Rudd’s record:

Fact: Kevin Rudd was borrowing 100 million dollars every day.
Fact: Now we have a 254-billion dollar debt.
Fact: He wasted up to eight billion dollars on school hall rip offs.
Fact: He was the architect of the roof batts disaster.
Fact: In 2008 he dismantled our border protection polices and now 45,000 boat people have flooded in.
Fact: He attacked our mining industry with a super profits tax that failed.
Fact: He did a backflip on the carbon emissions trading scheme and supported the world’s biggest carbon tax.
Fact: With five budget deficits and the carbon tax Kevin Rudd and Labor have driven up the cost of living.
Fact: Now he’s divided the Labor Party again, with one third of cabinet ministers refusing to work with him.

In advertising - and politics - it is pointless to argue the public out
of believing what’s obvious or entrenched. The skill is in shifting the
light, so that a characteristic that seems a strength is revealed as a
weakness, and vice versa.
The Liberals know Rudd’s verbal fluency and use of warm-fuzzy phrases
are great strengths. (Real Worm food in the debates, which will scare
the Opposition.) Add to that Rudd’s desperate need for approval, and his
speeches become effective appeals for applause - although not plans for
government. That makes them potent when campaigning, even if dead
losses when governing.
So the Liberals will paint Rudd as all talk, so that the finer Rudd’s phrase, the emptier it will sound.
As for Abbott, painted so often as too conservative and inflexible, the
Liberals will hope again to be able to shift the light so those alleged
failings seem instead the virtues of a man who is rock solid.
The contest is on.
UPDATE
Henry Ergas explains the All Talk Rudd phenomenon:

Although no single policy could possibly capture all of Rudd’s flaws,
the response to illegal boat arrivals must come close. It is impossible
to say what, if anything, he now believes, or has ever believed, about
this issue. Alternating between hawk and dove, he campaigned in 2007 on a
tough, “turn back the boats” line; but once in office, he made a virtue
of dismantling the Howard government’s Pacific Solution, describing it
as “just wrong” and inconsistent with “the humanity of the situation”.

As
boat arrivals picked up, he disregarded departmental advice and
repeatedly denied there was any relation whatsoever between that
increase and his scrapping of Howard’s policies. With detention centres
overflowing, a de facto toughening was under way; but Rudd nonetheless
went into the 2010 leadership challenge vowing that he would not “be
lurching to the Right” on asylum-seekers…

[C]raving approval,
Rudd needed to be all things to all people: a humanitarian for those who
advocated for refugees; tough-minded for the swinging voters in western
Sydney. With their fine antennas, the people-smugglers saw through his
inconsistencies; and by 2010, immense damage had been done…

His performance was a classic Rudd cocktail of cynical dishonesty and pompous, total unknowingness.
He purported to commit to a national drive to boost our productivity—to achieve a growth rate of 2 per cent a year “or better”.
Does he have the faintest idea that, to achieve that, he would have to
commit to reversing just about everything he either did in his first
incarnation, or set his successor on the road to doing?
Starting with bringing back more or less the entirety of the Howard
government’s Work Choices? Then undoing big chunks of his or Gillard’s
spending, to enable business tax cuts and broader tax reform?
One had to marvel at his chutzpah, when he put cutting electricity
prices at the top of the agenda. When his “greatest moral challenge”
demanded—and he and his successor delivered—that they had to go up.
If you believe Rudd Mark Two would be the slightest bit different to
Rudd Mark One, I have a Harbour Bridge, an NBN, and a few wind turbines
to sell you.

(Mike Quigley) said it wasn’t until a deal was signed with Telstra
that he thought the project would work and generate a return for the
government.
In October 2011 Telstra’s 1.4 million shareholders overwhelmingly backed
a historic agreement that handed Telstra a compensation package
totalling $11 billion in return for decommissioning its copper network
as the new fibre-based NBN was rolled out.
“When I first took the job I didn’t know whether it would work,” Mr Quigley admitted.

Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill:

What an extraordinary admission. It now confirms all of the big
commitments the ALP took to the 2010 election were, to varying degrees,
con jobs:

1. East Timor Offshore Processing Centre (a complete fantasy)
2. Return to Surplus in 2012-13 (constructed on the completely compromised PEFO numbers)
3. A national debate - primarily through the Climate Change Citizens’
Assembly - to ensure consensus before moving to an ETS in 2013 at the
earliest (dumped shortly after PM Gillard broke her no carbon tax
promise)
4. Revised mining tax (it was always going to raise next to nothing
after the Big Three designed it so as they, for all intents and
purposes, would never have to pay it)
5. NBN (the bloke in charge of it didn’t know whether it would work until a year after the election).

If you take all these off the table, what did the ALP take to election? Nothing.
And what did Quigley say to the Independents
when they met during the negotiations to form minority government?
Windsor and Oakeshott said the NBN was critical in their decision-making
process.
We can assume Quigley didn’t say “Look lads, between you, me and the
back fence, at this stage I’m not sure at this stage if this thing will
fly”.
So what did he say?

THE departure of Mike Quigley from the
National Broadband Network is a very timely reminder of just exactly
what was so bad about Kevin Rudd as prime minister and the government
that he so chaotically led…
The NBN is simply an out-of-control mess… Four years into his time as
chief executive, barely 70,000 premises are actually connected to the
NBN, after billions have been spent…
What Quigley’s departure should vividly remind us, is that the person,
the one and only person, on whom it can and should, all be blamed, is of
course Kevin Rudd.
Rudd and Conroy roughed up the commitment to the NBN, perhaps literally,
certainly figuratively, on the back of an envelope, during a VIP flight
to Canberra.
They got on to the plane with their plan to spend $12 billion on a more
modest, more sensible, essentially rational fibre to the node network in
ruins, because of Telstra playing hardball. They get off the plane
committed to spending $40bn, almost certainly going on $60bn, and ending
up as much as who knows where, on an utterly, hysterically irrational
fibre to the premises network…
It was just crazy grandiloquence. Rudd-as-the-Down Under-Sun King—his 21st century tech Versailles indulgence.
And why was Conroy on that plane discussing what would turn into a $40bn
project in the first place? Because he couldn’t get to see our
whirlygig masquerading as a prime minister over months and months in the
normal ministerial way.

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===I put up two landscape shots, an urban industrial, and now a stormscape... that's a full day of imagery!
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There is such a thing as good luck and bad luck .. but only a fool would follow it. - ed

I don't believe in bad and good luck, I believe in Lessons and Blessings.

===Sometimes the Island security is on your side and lets you wander around this area at night freely and sometimes it doesn't... just matters who the guard is. I have to say this night was enhanced by the island security... he had no troubles with us, but did have concerns with a couple who seemed strange and possibly threatening, who might have been scoping us and our equipment out. Sometimes you need a protector in the night. This evening we had one.
===Home made porridge with brown sugar apples
===New Star Trek ornaments debut this weekend. Details at http://bit.ly/18dzief
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If you make a mistake with her, your stuffed - ed
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===Meticulously Detailed Drawing Made with Graphite and Chalk!

At this link:http://independentfilmnewsandmedia.com/wonderful-life-phone-scene/
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===Am I the only one who never head of a fiddlehead fern? Saw one for the first time on ColoradoASTA newsletter.
===Tuolomne Twilight. I shot this last night after the sun had set. I had taught an Aperture Academy class right next to this location a month ago and have been dying to return. Cathedral peak can be seen in this image, standing tall over this high valley in the lowering light of evening time.
===Dave Lux remembers that he lived with his family in an isolated rural area in Slovakia near the Hungarian border, and that his father was a baker in a nearby village. He also recalls that his parents fled with him and his older brother the day after some soldiers came to their house in spring 1939.
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You Are Made Righteous When You Believe.

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous(Romans 5:19, NKJ)

Proverbs 28:1 says that “the righteous are as bold as a lion.” But the only way you’re going to have that kind of boldness is to know that you have been made righteous through Jesus. When you know who you are in Christ, when you know that God is smiling upon on you and that your sins are forgiven, then you’re going to hold your shoulders back and have the boldness and confidence that God really wants you to have.

Being righteous doesn’t mean that you’re perfect. It doesn’t mean that you don’t make mistakes. Righteousness is being in right standing with God. If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and have a desire to please Him, then you have been made righteous. You have been born into God’s very own family. You did not do anything to earn this righteousness, it’s simply a gift. Because of Jesus’ obedience to pay the price for our sin, we are made righteous through Him. Receive His gift of righteousness today so that you can move forward in the boldness and victory He has for you.God bless you.

Kerry set to make sixth Mideast visit next week in attempt to restart peace talks - jpost

'The visit, if it indeed takes place, comes as some in the US are questioning whether this is the area where Kerry should be focusing his time and energy right now.

US sources said..... US President Barack Obama – who, beyond giving Kerry public backing, has kept a low profile during the secretary of state’s efforts to prod the sides back to the table – has given Kerry the green light to try to move the sides together, but does not want to get too personally involved to avoid a diplomatic failure.

The sources said the feeling in the White House was that in this way if Kerry succeeded, Obama would obviously enjoy much of the credit, but if he failed, then Obama could distance himself from the failure that would be dropped at Kerry’s doorstep." - Herb Kenon

And as, an Administration remains entrenched within scandals, weakened economic policies and failed foreign policy directives, a determined pursuit lies within the scope of creating a presidential legacy; and a sentiment to include....if only.

===The account is ok, but it fails to raise the most salient issue .. why. I believe the reason for the destruction of the evidence is related to the politics of the day. Before the myth of the stolen generations, a big issue was Aboriginal deaths in custody. Steps had been taken to ensure Aboriginal people wouldn't suicide in custody. For an ALP government to have detained an Aboriginal girl who was subsequently pack raped would have looked very bad for the entire ALP brand ..
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There are so many different "points" of our day/lives. High points, low points, sadness, pain, happiness, excitement and so on. But remember to keep yourself girded in prayer. God has a solution for every problem; a smile for every tear and a "lift up" for every fall. Through the good times and the bad he's still so worthy to be praise. And he truly sticks closer than a brother:)

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.

Psalm 34:17-20

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30 Kachin Organizations Urge the U.S Government to Renew the Gem Ban in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, Will you join them?

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About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..